Tourette’s Syndrome Outbreak in NY Town

Last August, 16-year-old Lori Brownell passed out while head-banging at a concert. A month later, she lost consciousness again at her school’s homecoming dance in upstate Corinth, N.Y. Brownell says her doctors put her on Celexa, but she only developed more symptoms, including involuntary twitching and clapping. In videos she posted to YouTube, Brownell flutters her fingers, touches her hair, snorts through her nose and throat, and shouts “Hey, hey, hey,” seemingly without control. On Christmas Eve, doctors diagnosed her with Tourette’s Syndrome. Now, however, her symptoms have another name: conversion disorder, or mass hysteria.

Since Brownell first passed out last summer, 14 other upstate New York students—13 girls and a boy, most of them students at LeRoy Junior-Senior High School—have come down with similar symptoms.

Is it a case of mass hysteria? That’s what one doc thinks. More at the link.

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